


Save Me Street

by You_Light_The_Sky



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Angst, Fluff, Johnlock Gift Exchange, M/M, Magic Realism, Mentions of Domestic Violence (NOT between John and Sherlock), mentions of drug use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-02
Updated: 2012-12-02
Packaged: 2017-11-20 01:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/You_Light_The_Sky/pseuds/You_Light_The_Sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John comes into his life from out of nowhere. John tells him that he’s from 221B Baker Street. But 221B Baker Street doesn’t exist. For poralizer on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for the December Johnlock Gift Exchange on tumblr for poralizer. The prompt was: Lazy Sunday morning in bed.
> 
> Requested Genres: Fluff, Domestic, Magical Realism (I mixed a little of all three in here)
> 
> This is a short prologue. I'll be updating one chapter per day. I hope you like it!

“No stranger will dare help you when you fall, little brother,” he remembers Mycroft saying in their youth, when they hear the story of the Good Samaritan from Sherlock’s teacher, who lectured him on being kinder to his classmates, “they will keep walking, leaning towards ignorance instead because there is no advantage to taking in an alien.”

 _Alien,_ he remembers thinking, _a noun and adjective. In this case, adjective. Multiple meanings including one, belonging to a different nation (dismiss); two, being unfamiliar, disturbing or distasteful; three, extraterrestrial (dismiss) and so on_.

They called him ‘alien’ back then, all of the boys in his school (they still do.)

Mycroft had said the word ‘alien’ with a wrinkling of his nose, his disgust clear from his tone of voice. ‘Alien’ meant different, foreign, and unwelcome. Mycroft wasn’t one for charity and neither was Sherlock. God, he was a little brat then, always following Mycroft’s every word as if it were law, as if his brother could do no wrong. As far as he was concerned at that age, anyone who fell from grace deserved the fall and the consequences that went with it.

Now as he spits out the mixture of gravel, pavement, dirt and blood from his mouth, Sherlock wants to laugh from desperation. Mycroft was right (and wouldn’t the fat bastard be smug to know it, with Sherlock lying here?) There is no doubt in his mind that he deserves this for his miscalculation—

—Just another hit. Just one more, another high on euphoria, he had reasoned, to block out the stupid little voices and faces that flashed in his mind (“ _Why can’t he be normal? Freak. Monster. Alien._ ”) It’s just an experiment. He needs to verify the effects of cocaine on his thought process, nothing that will kill him. He’d know. He’s a genius—

His dealer had just broken up with his lover. Sherlock had opened his mouth and deduced the reasons why (“... _another paramour with more money, clearly only staying with you for so long because of money. Not surprising considering your less than mediocre ability to satisfy her in bed..._ ”)

They threw him out, of course. They beat him until he couldn’t see anything but crimson blurs and they left him crumpled against some overturned bins with the spell of trash crawling into his nose.

Sherlock can feel his consciousness slipping. He’s aware that the cracking from before, when the thugs punched his stomach and chest, indicates several cracked ribs. There’s warm liquid gathering at his side from where they cut him.

This is it. All of his genius, all of his deductions and thoughts are going to end because he wanted another high. He can’t move, can’t call out for help because no one will hear him (and no one will help.) If there is a higher being out there, Sherlock wants to spit at them and laugh. Is this it? What he’s amounted to? His whole life a series of failings and pointless dabbling in drugs when he could be so much more... so much...

( _“A consulting detective?_ ” _his mother had scoffed while Mycroft stood by her in agreement_. “ _Don’t be absurd, darling. I won’t have my son speaking of this nonsense. You will pursue a real career, something of value, perhaps a position in the government like your brother..._ ”

 _And Sherlock feels a stab of resentment. Always belittled, never on the same level as perfect Mycroft, never, never..._ )

Footsteps approach. They hold a distinct pattern of someone from the military but it’s obvious that the passerby has a limp. Probably ex-military, discharged from the army for that injury. There’s no way he’d return to active service with that leg.

“Shit,” the ex-soldier swears. Male then, an older voice. Probably early or mid-thirties. Sherlock moves his face and tries to peer up but the blurs from the grey buildings and sky smudge any detail. “Alright mate, you need to come with me. I’ll patch you up at my flat. You’ll feel better in no time... can you nod if you can hear me?”

Stupid question, of course Sherlock can hear him. Can’t the man see the glimpses of coherence in Sherlock’s eyes? Can’t he observe?

Nevertheless, he gives a stiff nod. The blood loss must be interfering with his pride.

“Hey mate, look, you need help,” the ex-soldier tries to say again.

Obvious, Sherlock thinks.

Concern is there. The man must be the sort who thinks himself as altruistic. Sherlock dismisses that thought. The ex-soldier will leave soon enough.

Sherlock tries to scoff but it comes out as a bloody cough.

“Alright then, look. You have to say ‘yes’ or something otherwise I have no power to help you. Please,” the ex-soldier whispers, “please let me help you. I think you need it.”

Another glob of blood spills from him. “And why would I need it? Why do I need you at all?”

He should be left to die here. The stranger’s actions don’t compute. There’s no logic behind this concern. If anything, the stranger should have phoned the hospital with a mobile (probably doesn’t own one) or rushed out for help. And yet he’s asking Sherlock to let him be taken back to a stranger’s flat. It’s ridiculous.

The stranger pauses. _There_ , Sherlock thinks, _now he’ll leave me alone and I can pass away in peace_. “Well,” says the ex-soldier, “because I don’t think you’re the type to want his life to end in an alley way, especially not in dreary London. Maybe you’ll want a better change of scenery... like a bedroom. With a nice comfy bed. And a book.”

Sherlock chokes again and it isn’t because of the blood.

“Do you... always... make morbid jokes... to people who are dying?” he wants to know because suddenly this person is interesting, if only for a moment. The stranger will probably return to another one of the boring humans that take up the background in London but for this moment, Sherlock wants to hang on and figure out _why_ anyone would say such interesting things.

“Only the ones that talk back. The ones that don’t, well, usually I try to get them to wake up somehow,” he can hear the desperate smile on the soldier’s face. “Now, please, let me help you. I really can’t if you don’t say ‘yes.’”

There’s a shape in front of his face and when he blinks, Sherlock sees the shape of fingers and kind blue eyes.

_No one will help you._

And yet...

“...Alright...” is all he remembers saying. “Alright...”

He takes the ex-soldier’s hand ( _a surgeon’s hand,_ he notes absentmindedly, feeling the calluses on worn skin) before he slips into darkness.

-

That’s the first time he meets John.

 


	2. Part 1

**Part 1: An Impossible Stranger**

“Piss off!” the boys sneer at him after they give one final kick to his stomach.

He hisses out in pain, feeling the dull throbbing in his eyes (swollen, blurry vision, likely to be a black eye; mild dizziness, possibility of concussion as well as several bruises and a fractured wrist.) His nerves all scream with the sensation of pain, overloading his brain and clouding his thought process. But he can still think. He can hear the thick footsteps of the policemen (always wearing the same shoes when he walks by the station, running in the same trained dashes) coming near.

If he wanted to, he could warn them, threaten them. He doesn’t, of course, and only smiles, knowing full well that the red running across his teeth will disturb his attackers. Predictably, they pause in their beatings and jeers, insulted at what they can’t understand (and never will, the idiots.)

“What are you smirking at, freak? Did we damage that brain of yours, finally?” the thin one with a jagged haircut laughs. The slight rasp in his voice gives away his fear. Mark or Steven or whatever his name is never feels comfortable around him.

Sherlock keeps smirking. He welcomes the pain, the thumping in his veins. It replaces his previous frustration ( _“Silly boy, go back to your classes. This is a simple suicide, no murder at all. Honestly, the way kids are raised these days...”_ ) with the feeling of here and now. He is alive (and Carl Powers, with his _glassy,_ fascinating, _horrid_ eyes, is not.)

“Oi! What are you boys doing?! Get away from him!” he hears the officers shout when they stumble upon the alley way.

He takes satisfaction from the terrified cries of his schoolmates, the typical denials of fear, the shakiness of their voices. Human beings are all the same. It’s better to feel nothing at all.

( _Sherlock remembers Carl Powers, the only boy who ever greeted Sherlock as if he was just another classmate rather than the class outcast. Carl Powers who didn’t mind being his partner for homework, and while he didn’t like Sherlock’s deductions, tolerated him at best. Carl who yells at him when he says that he doesn’t like Carl’s shoes, there’s something odd about them, something he doesn’t properly observe until it’s too late because he didn’t want Carl to yell anymore..._ )

Carl’s parents cried. Their tears made them into ugly creatures, no longer the pristine and proud couple that owned five estates. He saw them at the crime scene but he was too busy staring at the body, memorizing the look on Carl’s face, trying to put it all together. They didn’t like it when he tried to tell them that their son was killed. It got him a slap and several reprimands.

He just wanted them to know. He thought they would want to know (for how else would one escape such feeling but by finding the truth?)

 _Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock,_ his brother (and even he didn’t deem Sherlock’s first case important enough to help him with) always says.

It’s the last thing Sherlock will adopt from his brother.

There is only the case, the high and the satisfaction of a puzzle completed. There is no need to involve these things called emotions.

-

It’s warm. He hasn’t been warm in a long time.

“It’s going to be alright,” the stranger tells him, saying such lovely lilts of an ethereal language, one beyond human vocabulary. It’s softer than the pianissimo of the loveliest strings, more comforting than the harp plucked gracefully in a church. It reaches down towards him and pulls him back together, spills out the remnants of chemicals from his blood, coaxes skin cells back together.

When it finishes, Sherlock groans, clinging to the stranger’s arms and muttering for more music.

The stranger laughs, “You’re just like my sister. It’s not music, mate. Just a whisper.”

But it’s so much more than that insignificant word. Sherlock wants to listen to it forever, try to capture it on the violin and then play it into the night. He tries to say this when the stranger lets out the song again and then Sherlock lets himself sleep.

-

He hears the sizzling of meat being cooked against a fry pan. It’s an annoying buzz (like the constant and strained _thinking_ from other people’s heads blocking out his) that heightens the pain in his head. It makes him want to throw things (like he used to throw them at the maids and butlers in Mummy’s mansion) until someone else shares his annoyance.

Sherlock rolls over, soft cushions touching his face; before he opens his eyes and sees that he is lying in a single size bed, buried under several different checked patterned quilts. His eyes dart over every centimeter of the room, taking in the slightly faded blue paint on the walls. There’s a distinct lack of personal items in the small room. Only a drawer for additional clothing, a clock ticking just on top of it and a desk with a laptop unplugged are there. There are medical texts and cookbooks placed neatly on a shelf, along with several science fiction novels and texts written entirely in Latin.

So his host is single, living alone, invalidated recently. A lack of social contact judging from the lack of photographs. This is definitely the ex-soldier’s room. There’s the obsessive need to organize everything and compartmentalize each possession in areas of easy accessibility. Besides, what man puts his precious books (spines worn, read often and with marked passages) in a guest room? His host likely studied some Classical Literature on the side when he was in medical school.

Bits and pieces of the events from the other night come back to Sherlock easily. He frowns as he reviews the conversation and meeting in his head, trying to work out the stranger’s motivations. Sherlock dismisses money immediately. Mycroft is a powerful figure in the government but he’s careful to keep his power unknown. Not many connect Sherlock Holmes to the Holmes estate anymore and besides, that isn’t the logical conclusion one would come to when finding a bloodied and dying stranger dumped in an alleyway.

He needs more data.

Sherlock Holmes promptly gets up and heads towards the door.

At least, he would have, if he hadn’t remembered one detail—his injuries (or rather, a lack of them.)

Sherlock Holmes looks down at his hands, his chest and sees the bloodstained bandages wrapped carefully (and with skill) around him. And yet... there is no pain. Sherlock doesn’t feel the accompanying and numbing effect of narcotics or painkillers (he’s all too familiar with those.) There’s just... him, his mind and... And the lack of pain when he walks.

“This shouldn’t be possible...” Sherlock whispers, watching his fingers flex back and forth, as if they were never broken at all.

When he peels back the bandages, seeing the pink outline of faint scars almost healed, the first thing he wants to do is grab a scalpel and prod at his skin until it bleeds and he knows from the pain that it is real. But he doesn’t because a bigger question remains...

Sherlock slams open the door and rushes down the steps (twenty-seven in total) to a small kitchen area that is just as neat as the insufferable bedroom. His host is just slipping several bacon strips on two ceramic plates. There’s a slight tremor in his left hand when he sets the plates down on a table that’s covered with racks of test tubes and Bunsen burners. Sherlock has an urge to walk over to the bubbling experiment and see what the ex-soldier is working on. No one else that he knows has a lab set up in their kitchen and that’s just fascinating, it looks just like the set he’s always wanted—

No. He needs answers.

“Who are you?” Sherlock demands and before the stranger (about five foot six or so, strong build, tremor in left hand, definitely shot while on duty, blue eyes, greying blond hair, a steady gaze, unassuming guise achieved through combination of jumper and trousers) can speak.

Instead of looking insulted, the ex-soldier actually smiles at him in amusement. “I’m John, John Watson. But I told you that already.”

Sherlock frowns, “No, you did not.”

John keeps smiling and Sherlock isn’t sure if he wants it to stop or not. Most smiles are at his expense but there’s a warmth in John’s eyes that others never possess.

“Yes, well, when I was patching you up earlier, you were rather out of it... I introduced myself after you asked me if I was in Afghanistan or Iraq. It’s Afghanistan, by the way, if you don’t remember. That deducing you did... that was quite amazing!”

“I—” Sherlock is about to say before he realizes what was said, “Wait. Really?”

“Yes,” John laughs, and he finds that John’s laugh isn’t so bad after all. “Really. You’re brilliant, just putting together a person’s stories just by the little details in their shoes or thumbs. That’s just incredible.”

It’s one of the first times in a while that Sherlock ever remembers being lost for words. He hovers awkwardly, sees the genuine awe in John’s face but unable to fully process it through his brain as actual fact.

“That’s not what people normally say,” Sherlock responds.

“Oh?” John says as he gets some toast from the toaster, sounding honestly puzzled. “Well, what do they usually say?”

 _You saw_ , Sherlock wants to reply but for some reason, he doesn’t want to upset his host. He doesn’t want to see John’s reaction when Sherlock (inevitably) says the wrong thing at the wrong time because of life’s stupid social norms. He finds that he wants to keep this positive view of himself, even for just a little while. So instead he tries to keep their odd camaraderie in float by shrugging, “Piss off.”

He holds his breath and waits.

When John laughs, Sherlock laughs with him, storing the memory of a shared joke in an empty room that is protected by his mind palace.

-

“So I’m sure you have questions,” John bites into his toast, a healthy spread of jam smothered on top.

Sherlock wrinkles his nose at the sight of food. But having had no appetite for the past three days, he decides that a bit of eggs won’t do much harm to his thinking.

“Yes,” he nods, folding his hands together. “How my wounds healed so quickly for one. I assume I haven’t been here for longer than a day. I could taste it in my mouth and yet I feel no pain, no drugs. Everything is... as new as before. There is no branch of modern medicine that I’ve heard of to date that is capable of accelerated healing of this caliber, not with my wounds. So there’s only one other possibility in mind...”

John raises his glass of milk to his lips, a silent look telling Sherlock to go on.

“You’re a whisperer,” Sherlock says, confident in his conclusion. “There’s no other way you could have healed me this quickly if you weren’t.”

Then he waits.

-

He’s heard of whisperers before. They’re as universal as fairy tales, engrained into a child’s head from youth to adulthood and therefore undeletable.

Sherlock never believed in them before, once he had figured out that legends such as the tooth fairy and Santa Claus didn’t exist at the age of three. (His mother had the maids and butlers fired for destroying her baby boy’s ‘hopes and dreams’ at such an ‘impressionable’ age while Sherlock had smugly eaten Mycroft’s chocolates.)

Honestly, the idea that there existed a rare variation of human beings that could whisper words in a different language and just... _make things happen_ with their will was preposterous. Impossible.

But then Mycroft had taken Sherlock to one of the government’s top secret facilities one day. He called it a learning exercise, something to broaden Sherlock’s knowledge so that he could make deductions based on _all_ the facts.

“I _do_ have all the facts, Mycroft,” Sherlock had stamped his feet.

“No,” his brother had replied when they stopped in a white room where only a glass screen was present. “You do not. There are some things that the world remains ignorant of because we live in a foolish age. But I won’t have my brother living in the same lie.”

Before Sherlock had been able to demand what the hell his brother was spouting about Mycroft nodded to one of the guards. The guards nodded and made a signal, clearing the glass screen so that Sherlock could stretch on his tip-toes and stares at what was kept on the other side.

There was another boy, the same age as Sherlock, with wide almost-black eyes filled with a certain edge. The boy had a smug grin and dark hair as he gad rocked back and forth on his heels, muttering something strange under his breath.

Sherlock had scrunched his brow, trying to read the boy’s lips from the other side when he asked, “What is he say—”

“Watch, brother, and you may learn something.”

The boy had finished his indecipherable mutterings before he had grinned, a strange glow surrounding his body (one that made Sherlock’s eyes widen in disbelief) and then he had blown against the glass.

Fire had swum out in waves, engulfing the room in bright orange light.

Sherlock remembers crying out, his hands feeling the heat of the fire from the other side. The sprinklers had turned on in the room on the other side, covering it in smoke and revealing the boy unharmed.

“What... what was that?”

Mycroft had smiled grimly, clutching his umbrella.

“A whisperer.”

-

He watches for any tell signs that John will avoid the topic or lie (because isn’t that what whisperers do? Lie? Or is that just all humans in general?) He’s hungry for any more information that will help him classify this ex-soldier/surgeon/stranger who refuses to fit into any of the categories that he’s made for humankind. He needs something, _anything_ , to show him that John Watson is just another ordinary person.

Instead John’s shoulders slump and he seems to be looking at something beyond Sherlock.

“Sort of, yes. I am.”

Sherlock leans over the table, nearly knocking over several glass vials of red and blue chemicals. One of the jars of jam shatters on the floor and there is an angry grumble that vibrates through the building, like a subtle purr of an earthquake. But Sherlock is too busy grabbing the sides of John’s face, looking at it with fascination.

“Amazing, a _whisperer_. I haven’t met one that wasn’t picked by Mycroft before. Healing must be your ability then, though I wonder why you bother with learning surgery. I suppose it would make a good cover for your ability. Would make it difficult for you to be noticed by the government. Is this why you’re so different from other humans?”

“Whoa,” John gently pushes Sherlock’s hands away at a distance more comfortable to him. “Alright, slow down, mate. What’s this about the government then?” For the first time, John looks resigned in Sherlock’s presence, “You aren’t going try to tell anyone about me, are you?”

Again, a steady vibration seems to rumble through the floor. It could be an aftershock from a distant earthquake but Sherlock thinks that the flat is just old and deteriorating now.

“No, of course not. Something this interesting should be kept from my brother at all costs!”

Sherlock certainly isn’t going to let Mycroft steal this away from him. At least not until he’s figured out every inch of this whisperer for himself. He wonders how long it takes a whisperer to heal a shallow cut versus a stabbing. How much energy does it take? Does a whisperer’s heart rate change and by how much? What are the adverse effects?

“Your brother?” John frowns. “Right, I don’t want to know. I suppose it doesn’t matter in the end,” John stares up at the ceiling again, where one of the light bulbs flickers three times, “yes... It really won’t matter.”

Sherlock narrows his eyes, “And what do you mean by that?”

John shrugs and grins half-heartedly, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you so I’ll just let you figure it out on your own. You had more questions?”

There are even more now, with John’s cryptic statement. Sherlock’s mind whirls with different possibilities. Could John be on the run from the government? Is his name really John? He dismisses that possibility, having observed any signs of a lie in the ex-soldier.

“Why did you help me?” Sherlock asks for it is the one thing that does not make sense in his mind no matter how many different angles he looks at the subject.

Blinking in surprise, John replies, “Well, isn’t that what any decent person would do?”

“No!” Sherlock snaps, suddenly feeling irritated as this impossible man’s naive trust in random idiots from the street, at Sherlock’s inability to find an ulterior motive to any of this, “there aren’t any _decent_ people in the world, only the stupid and those that take advantage of them. Clearly you are one of the stupid if you’re moronic enough to let a freak into your home—”

“A freak?” John frowns, because, of course, that would be the only detail that he would pick up on. “You’re not a freak. I would know.”

“Irrelevant,” Sherlock snaps.

“No, it’s not,” John crosses his arms. His stance softens, “Look, it’s none of my business really. But I have to ask... are you in trouble? It’s just, you were beaten up pretty badly and—”

“I am aware of that,” Sherlock snaps, not wanting another pair of eyes to stare at him accusingly for the drugs, the cocaine (the deductions), “and I don’t _need_ your pity, John.”

“Look,” John scowls, “it’s just the right thing to do—”

“Oh really?” Sherlock narrows his eyes, “Is that what people do now? Collect the first homeless person they find? Take them home, make them all better and then throw them out again? Or maybe it’s your residual guilt, leftover from taking care of a relative. Mother? Father? Sister? Oh, a flinch. Bingo. Tell me, did she end up on the streets as well? And you left her? Is that why you try to take care of others with such abandon, because you want to forgiveness?”

“That’s enough.”

The sharp rebuke makes Sherlock stop, tensing for the coming disgust and rejection.

But John doesn’t do that. John just looks tired... and sad.

“Look...” John says, “I just heard a scream. I saw you there and I thought... ‘I can’t leave him like that. I can’t let him die while I’m here. It would be wrong.’ Can’t you just accept that?”

 _No,_ he thinks because that would mean that Mycroft is wrong, that he is wrong. There is no possible way that anyone would be this noble. There’s always another reason. Money, unrequited love, sentiment, greed, drugs, revenge, mental instability.

( _“Remember, Sherlock, whisperers always lie.”_ )

He needs to leave before this man spins more spells with his words.

“I need my coat.”

Sherlock gets up, marching straight to the door. With alarm, John follows.

“Wait,” he argues, “shouldn’t you finish your breakfast? You lost a lot of blood last night. When the body heals that quickly, it uses a lot of fuel. You’ll need more energy—”

Sherlock spots a frame hanging in the hallway. John is there, dressed in his uniform, years younger and standing with an elderly lady with curly grey hair and a wide smile.

“Your landlady, I take it?” Sherlock says.

John freezes. “Yes,” he replies in a hushed tone, “Mrs. Hudson. But how did you...?”

“She doesn’t share any likeness with you and yet you’re close. There’s a kitchen downstairs with a more feminine style of decor, hints of another person living here, probably a landlord or landlady. The picture is in the hallway, an area you wouldn’t own so ergo, landlady put it up because she favours you as a son.”

He relishes the stunned silence afterwards.

“...It really is amazing, what you can do. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever met,” John tells him to Sherlock’s amazement. It’s as if their previous argument had never happened. “Is it part of your job, or something? Are you like, a detective?”

Sherlock stills, hand just above his coat.

“Sorry,” John says quickly. “I know it’s a bit nosy of me and you’re probably dying to get out of here. But it’s just that I don’t get much company, well, company that doesn’t run off right away. I think you must be a brilliant detective if you are one.”

(... _“I’m going to be a consulting detective! The only one in the world! I’ll only take cases that are interesting to me and I’ll never get bored of my work because it won’t be like other boring jobs. I’ll actually get to solve things that I want, whenever I want,” he boasts to his brother, but of course Mycroft rolls his eyes and dismisses Sherlock’s declaration for childish whims..._

_... “A junkie, Sherlock? Is that what you’ve lowered yourself to? All that potential wasted. Mummy will be so upset with you”..._

_...What does it matter anymore when no one takes him seriously? Ever since Carl Powers, no one will listen to him. He’s above them, too intelligent to be understood by the general masses. No one will listen and he’s so bored... so bored that he’ll do anything to feel alive... and so he reaches for another drag..._ )

“No,” Sherlock says bitterly as he puts on his coat. “It hasn’t occurred to me to apply.”

“What?” John exclaims, “Well, if you think it’s for you, then you should! You’d be the best one in the world, I know it. What’s stopping you? It seems like your thing, if you don’t mind me saying... And besides,” he pauses, looking at Sherlock with knowing eyes, “it’s never too late.”

Sherlock stares at John again, taking in every detail of John’s face and hands, the way John’s jumper is a size too big for him, makes him look dwarfed and harmless when he is anything but. This man is a whisperer. This man is a liar.

But when Sherlock looks at him, he only sees the truth. (Isn’t that what he always prides himself in? For not only seeing, but observing?)

“...Thank you,” says Sherlock.

And with that, Sherlock walks out the door, ignoring the bits of dust that rains on his hair and the fallen wires from the holes in the ceiling that brush against his scarf. He thinks that John must know, about the drugs. He’s a doctor, after all and a whisperer too (one that Sherlock won’t let Mycroft have.) And yet he didn’t mention it at all. He only told Sherlock that he was brilliant and that he thought that Sherlock would be a great (consulting) detective.

It’s the first time anyone (human or not) ever believed in him, and just this once, Sherlock wants to enjoy it. Sentiment and whisperers be damned.

-

John’s flat, he notices, is a tall two-story brick building that is in need of a new paint job and repairs on the roof. It’s grimy on the outside, soot covering the bricks and cracks, an old sandwich shop that looks closed and usually vacant for business. The colours of the shop window are just as faded and aged as the rest of the building.

Only the front door and the gleaming numbers of ‘221B’ are kept clean and polished, glinting in greeting to any who pass by. The numbers seem like an acronym, out of place next to this decrepit home but it seems fitting.

On his way down the road, Sherlock looks back at 221B and notices the advertisement hung up in John’s window saying ‘ _Flatmate Wanted. Must have nerves of steel against random shouting at night. Rent discussed in person_.’

His lips quirk up.

Maybe, if things work out, he might take John up on that offer.

-

Sherlock calls Mycroft voluntarily and he enjoys the surprise in his brother’s voice even if he loathes the reason for the phone call itself. He asks Mycroft to get him registered in a rehabilitation program while he’s still on the high of sentiment. He can’t depend on those chemicals anymore.

It takes about six months for him to get clean.

Afterwards, he ignores Mycroft’s prodding of offers for jobs in intelligence. Instead Sherlock begins working on creating a website for himself ‘The Science of Deduction’ so that he has some credibility in his new profession. He gets snide texts from Mycroft stating that this ‘inane idea will never work’ and for Sherlock to put his talents to better use.

Sherlock bins the mobile, adding a few pages about the different types of tobacco ash and blood splatters. He wonders what John would think of this and if John will look him up and read it (but then, he never told John his name, did he?)

Once that’s taken care of, Sherlock heads immediately to Scotland Yard, noting the presence of a few new police officers that might not dismiss his opinions so quickly (unlike some morons like that Anderson.) There’s a man with silver hair, Greg Lestrade, who isn’t as dim-witted as the rest of the Yard, who actually pauses and considers what Sherlock has to say when he storms into a crime scene before kicking him out.

Sherlock gives Lestrade five hours before he becomes frustrated and walks back to the station for Sherlock’s advice.

It takes four.

Lestrade tells Sherlock, when they arrest the murderer, that he might consult Sherlock from time to time if he has no choice.

Sherlock smirks because he knows that means he’s just become an official consulting detective.

Pride bubbles up in his chest and there’s only one person Sherlock wants to share the news with.

-

Sherlock remembers the way to John’s flat off by heart, the directions stored in a safe within the mind palace. He remembers all the landmarks and takes note of them when he finally turns the corner to John’s street.

Only...

There’s nothing there. No flat with rickety steps and bits of wires that fall on his head. No smudged window with a notice asking for another tenant in 221B that could put up with random bouts of PTSD and nightmares. No gleaming numbers of ‘two’ and ‘one’ and ‘b’ staring at him in the sunlight.

No John.

Just an empty lot of cement, littered with bins and stray cats... as if 221B Baker Street had never existed at all.

 


End file.
